Alexander (Vol. 2)

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘As I was saying,’ Parmenion continued, ‘it seems that the Great King is on the march with his army towards the ford at Thapsacus.’

  ‘The ford at Thapsacus . . .’ the King repeated. ‘So it is just as I imagined. Darius is out to block the pass at the Syrian Gates.’

  ‘I think you are right,’ said the Black.

  ‘And how many of them are there?’ asked Alexander.

  ‘A lot,’ replied Parmenion.

  ‘How many?’ asked the King impatiently.

  ‘About half a million, if our information is correct.’

  ‘Ten to one. That is a lot indeed.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Continue forwards – we have no choice. Prepare to leave.’

  The two officers saluted and headed for the door, but Alexander called Parmenion back.

  ‘What is wrong, Sire?’ asked the general.

  ‘We too should establish a password for the exchange of oral messages, don’t you think?’

  Parmenion lowered his head, ‘I had no choice when I sent Sisines to you – I had not envisaged such a situation before our splitting up.’

  ‘That is true, but now we need a password for our messages. A similar situation might develop in the future.’

  Parmenion smiled.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because you have brought to mind the rhyme you always used to sing as a child. Old Artemisia taught you it, your mother’s wet nurse, remember?

  The silly old soldier’s off to the war

  And falls to the floor, falls to the floor!

  ‘And then you would fall to the ground.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Alexander. ‘It is certainly not a password anyone is going to guess.’

  ‘And there is no need for us to memorize it. I will leave you now.’

  ‘General,’ Alexander stopped him once more.

  ‘Sire?’

  ‘What is Amyntas doing?’

  ‘His duty.’

  ‘Good. But keep him under surveillance, without his realizing it. And try to find out if Memnon really is dead and how it happened.’

  ‘I will do what I can, Sire. Eumolpus of Soloi’s messenger is still in the camp, I’ll give him orders to investigate.’

  The messenger left the following day and the army prepared to strike camp at dawn. Everything was prepared in advance – the animals were loaded up, the carts filled with provisions and weapons, while the route officers arranged the various stages which would take the army in seven days’ march to the Cilician Gates, a pass through the Taurus mountains, so narrow that the beasts of burden had to travel in single file.

  That same evening one of the soldiers who had arrived with the reinforcements appeared at Callisthenes’s tent to deliver a package. The historian, busy writing, stood up to give the soldier some payment, and then, as soon as he was alone, he opened the package and saw that it contained an ordinary text – an essay on beekeeping that he had not ordered and so it most certainly was to be read in code. The decoded message read:

  I have sent Theophrastus the medicine and asked him to give it to the physician on Lesbos, but the weather is bad and it is unsure whether any ships will leave in the next few days. Everything is uncertain in this situation.

  There then followed a letter which was not written in code:

  Aristotle to his nephew Callisthenes, Hail!

  I have met someone who knew Pausanias, the man who killed King Philip. The story we were told about him and his relationship with the king now proves difficult to believe because almost nothing in it appears to be true. I have identified one of the surviving accomplices and I met him in a hostelry in Beroea. He was extremely diffident and continued to deny everything while I tried in every way possible to reassure him. I had no success. The only thing I was able to discover – by paying a slave, a woman who is also his concubine – is this man’s true identity. Now I know that he has a young daughter whom he loves and keeps hidden away with the virgins in a temple to Artemis on the border with Thrace.

  I must leave for Athens, but I will continue my investigations and I will keep you informed. Take good care and keep in good health.

  Callisthenes placed the documents in a small chest and went to bed so as to be ready, the following day, to leave at dawn.

  When Eumenes and Ptolemy woke him up it was still dark.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ Eumenes asked.

  ‘What news?’ asked Callisthenes, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘It appears that Memnon is dead. Of some sudden illness.’

  ‘A sudden, incurable illness,’ added Ptolemy.

  Callisthenes sat up on the edge of his bed and poured some olive oil into the dim lamp.

  ‘Dead? But when?’

  ‘The news came with one of the officers who was leading the reinforcements. Calculating the time they took to reach us, I would guess that it perhaps happened fifteen days or a month back. Things have worked out just as we planned.’

  Callisthenes recalled the date of Aristotle’s letter and he too made a rapid mental calculation, coming to the conclusion that there was no certainty that the event had been caused by their actions, but neither could it be excluded. He simply replied, ‘Good . . . that’s good.’ Then, as he finished getting dressed, he called a slave and told her, ‘Serve something warm for Mr Secretary General and Commander Ptolemy.’

  46

  ‘SHEEP’S BRAINS,’ ANNOUNCED the Persian cook, placing a plate of golden fritters on the table before Eumolpus of Soloi. And as he pronounced those words a not-at-all-reassuring smile revealed all thirty-two of his whiter than white teeth beneath his big black moustache.

  The governor of Syria, the satrap Ariobarzanes, stretched out on a dining bed before him, smiled in an even more disconcerting manner. ‘Isn’t it your favourite dish?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, O Light of the Aryans and Indomitable Leader. May the future bring you the honour of wearing the rigid tiara if the worst should ever come to pass – and Ahura Mazda most certainly does not augur it – that the Great King should climb the tower of silence to join his glorious ancestors.’

  ‘The Great King is in perfect health,’ replied Ariobarzanes. ‘But please eat. How are these sheep’s brains?’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ moaned Eumolpus, rolling his eyes to simulate the most intense enjoyment.

  And “sheep’s brains” is also the password you use when you exchange secret messages with our enemies, is that not so?’ asked Ariobarzanes without interrupting his smile.

  Eumolpus coughed convulsively because a mouthful of sheep’s brains had just gone down the wrong way.

  ‘Some water?’ asked the cook with overly dramatic concern in his voice as he poured some from a silver jug, but Eumolpus, crimson-faced, made a gesture to say that no, there was no need.

  When he had recovered, his imperturbable air and his most charming smile both restored, he said, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t understood your little joke.’

  ‘But it’s no joke at all,’ the satrap graciously informed him, ripping the wing from a roast songthrush and stripping it of meat with his teeth. ‘It is quite simply the truth.’

  Eumolpus managed to control the panic that was churning in his bowels, took another fritter and successfully improvised a display of savouring every morsel before observing, with a meek look on his face, ‘Come along now, my illustrious host, you cannot seriously give credence to rumours which are doubtless most amusing, but which must not be allowed to cast aspersions on the reputation of a gentleman who has always . . .’

  Ariobarzanes stopped him with a polite gesture, dried his hands on the cook’s apron, put his feet on the floor, stood up and walked towards the window, signalling to Eumolpus to join him there.

  ‘Please, my good friend.’

  Eumolpus had no choice but to follow and to look down below. The few mouthfuls he had managed to swallow seemed to turn into poison in his belly and his face took on an ashen pallor. His messenger was
hanging naked by his arms from a pole and long strips of skin had been peeled and were hanging now from various parts of his body, exposing the bloody mass of muscles underneath. In some places the skin had been stripped so deeply that the bones were exposed, while his testicles had been removed and hung around his neck like some sort of grotesque necklace. There was no sign of life.

  ‘He told us,’ Ariobarzanes explained, impassively.

  Not far off a Hyrcanian slave was sharpening the tip of an acacia pole with an extremely sharp knife, occasionally rubbing the instrument on a piece of pumice so that the blade was kept smooth and almost luminescent.

  Ariobarzanes looked at the stake and stared into Eumolpus’s eyes as he made a most eloquent gesture with his hands.

  The poor man gulped and shook his head convulsively.

  The satrap smiled. ‘I felt sure we would understand each other, old friend.’

  ‘How . . . how can I help you?’ the informer stammered without managing to take his gaze from the sharp end of the stake. At the same time his anus contracted instinctively in an unconscious and spasmodic attempt to bar access to such a frightful intruder.

  Ariobarzanes returned to the table and stretched out on the dining bed, inviting Eumolpus to make himself comfortable. In fact he did manage to relax somewhat, hoping that the worst was perhaps over.

  ‘What reply was the little yauna expecting?’ asked the satrap, using the derogatory name to indicate the invader who had taken all of Anatolia.

  ‘King Alexander . . . I mean the little yauna,’ Eumolpus immediately corrected himself, ‘wanted to know where the Great King would be waiting for him with his army.’

  ‘Excellent! In that case I think we will send one of your messengers – not this one, whom I fear is no longer operational – to tell the little yauna that the Great King is waiting for him at the foot of the Syrian Gates with one half of his army, while the other half has been left to garrison the ford at Thapsacus. This should encourage him to attack.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ the informer nodded quickly. ‘That foolish and presumptuous boy, who, please believe me, I have always disliked, will lower his horns and set off at a gallop, confident of victory and will get himself stuck in the narrow alley between Mount Amanus and the sea, while you instead . . .’

  ‘We instead . . . we don’t concern you,’ Ariobarzanes cut him short. ‘You will do what I told you this very day. You will call your man to the room next door, where we are able to see you and listen to you, and you will send him immediately to your little yauna. Following our victory, we will decide what to do with you. Certainly, if we find that you have contributed decisively then the stake you have just seen in the courtyard might be put to some other use. But should anything go wrong . . . whoops!’ And, still smiling, he slipped the index finger of his right hand through the ring formed by the index finger of his left hand.

  Eumolpus prepared to do what he had been told, while several pairs of eyes and ears would doubtless be watching him from a series of well-concealed spyholes all around the room, in the highly decorated, frescoed walls.

  He explained everything to the new messenger: ‘You will tell them that your colleague is ill and that for this reason I have sent you. And when they ask you for the password you will say . . .’ and he coughed at this point, ‘. . . sheep’s brains.’

  ‘ “Sheep’s brains”, my Lord?’ the messenger asked in amazement.

  ‘Yes, “sheep’s brains”. Why? Is there anything wrong?’

  ‘No . . . no, not at all, everything’s fine. So I will leave straight away.’

  ‘Fine, good, off you go.’

  Eumolpus of Soloi then left through a small door which led to the other room, where Ariobarzanes was waiting for him.

  ‘May I go now?’ he asked, not without a certain anxiety.

  ‘You may,’ replied the satrap, ‘for now.’

  *

  From Gordium Alexander crossed Greater Phrygia until he reached the city of Ancyra, nestling at the bottom of a misty bowl formed by a group of hills. He reconfirmed the resident Persian satrap in his position, and added some Macedonian officers to the garrison.

  Then he set off again on the march eastwards and came to the banks of the Halys, the great river that flows into the Black Sea and which for centuries had constituted the border between the Aegean and Anatolian worlds and the Asian interior, the extreme frontier beyond which it was unthinkable for the Greeks to go. The army marched along it to the southern meander, after which they proceeded along the banks of two big salt lakes surrounded by vast white areas.

  Alexander accepted an oath of loyalty from the Persian satrap of Cappadocia and reconfirmed him in his position. Then he headed south with decision, without meeting any resistance, and set off over the enormous plateau, dominated by Mount Argaeus, a dormant volcano perpetually white with snow which rose every morning from the mists of dawn like a ghost. The landscape was often covered with white frost in the early hours of the day, but then, gradually, as the sun rose above the horizon, it would take on a reddish-brown colour.

  Many fields had been ploughed and seeded, while here and there, in those places the plough had failed to reach, there was yellow stubble, grazing material for small flocks of sheep and goats. After two days’ march the imposing ridges of the Taurus range came into view, their white peaks shining under the sun and turning red at sunset.

  It seemed impossible that this immense territory should open up before them almost spontaneously and that so many tribes, villages and cities should succumb without offering any resistance.

  The fame of the young leader had spread everywhere now, as had the news of the death of Commander Memnon, the only one, apart from the Great King himself, capable of bringing Alexander’s advance to a halt.

  After five days on the highland plateau, the path began to rise ever more steeply towards the pass that led on to the coastal plain of Cilicia. Every time they stopped in the evening, Alexander sat in his tent alone or with Hephaestion and his other friends to read Xenophon’s Anabasis, the diary of the expedition of the ten thousand who seventy years previously had passed through that very same spot. The Athenian historian described the pass as extremely narrow, difficult to cross if defended.

  Alexander opted to lead the column personally. The guards at the pass saw him and recognized him immediately in the rays of the rising sun, thanks to the red standard with the golden Argead star, the gigantic black horse he was riding and his silver armour, which flashed light with his every movement.

  The guards also saw the interminable snake of men and horses which was climbing up slowly but inexorably, and they decided immediately that there were not enough of them to take the invaders on and chose to beat a hasty retreat. Thus the pass was left free and negotiable without any difficulty.

  On the left-hand rock face, Seleucus recognized some inscriptions which could have been made by some of Xenophon’s ten thousand and he showed them to Alexander, who was most interested in the discovery. Then they set off again and looked out over the vale of the Cydnus and the great green plain of Cilicia.

  ‘We are in Syria,’ said Eumenes. ‘Anatolia is behind us now.’

  ‘It’s another world!’ exclaimed Hephaestion, sending his gaze out as far as the thin blue line which hemmed the plain. ‘And that’s the sea over there!’

  ‘Where will Nearchus be with our ships?’ asked Perdiccas.

  ‘He’ll be somewhere down there,’ replied Leonnatus. ‘He might even be looking up at these mountains and grumbling to himself, ‘Where on earth have that lot got to? Why don’t they make contact?’

  ‘It couldn’t be easier,’ replied Alexander. ‘For this reason it is a good idea if we rush to occupy the ports along the coast. That way if Nearchus wants to come he can quite happily anchor anywhere, without any fear of ambushes.’

  He spurred on Bucephalas and began moving downhill.

  Lysimachus said to Leonnatus, who was now riding alongside him, ‘If they
had tightened down their garrison over the pass from those peaks up there, not even a fly would have been able to come through.’

  ‘They’re scared,’ replied his friend. ‘We’ve got them running like rabbits. No one can stop us now.’

  Lysimachus shook his head. ‘That’s what you think. I don’t like this quiet at all. What I think is that we are marching straight into the lion’s jaws and the beast is patiently waiting for us with his mouth open.’

  Leonnatus grumbled, ‘And I will tear his tongue out.’ Then he moved back to check the rearguard of the column.

  In a relatively short distance the weather had changed completely, from fresh and dry as it had been up on the highlands, to warm and humid, and they all sweated profusely inside their armour.

  With just one stop they reached Tarsus, not far from the sea. The city opened its gates to them because the Satrap of Cilicia had fled, preferring to join the Great King’s army, which was continuing its inexorable march. Alexander had his army set up camp on the plain, while he himself, the crack troops and the higher-ranking officers found quarters in the best residences in the city. It was while he was in these lodgings that a visit was announced.

  ‘There is a messenger who insists upon speaking to you personally, Sire,’ said one of the guards who had been posted to the entrance.

  ‘Who does he come from?’

  ‘He claims to have been sent by a certain Eumolpus of Soloi.’

  ‘In that case he must have a password.’

  The guard left and shortly afterwards Alexander heard him laughing. It was certainly Eumolpus’s messenger.

  ‘The password is . . .’ began the guard, barely stifling his laughter.

  ‘I don’t find it all that amusing,’ the King said, cutting him short.

  ‘The password is, “sheep’s brains”.’

  ‘That’s it. That’s him . . . let him in.’

  The guard moved off laughing once more and showed the messenger in.